Installing Apache on Windows | Apache Phrasebook

Installing Apache on Windows is even easier than on Unix. The installation process for both Apache 1.3 and 2.x is quite similar. You simply need to download and launch the binary installer package from http://httpd.apache.org.

The wizard will ask you where to install the server and a few other pieces of information:

The network domain name
The fully qualified domain name of the server
The administrator's email address

The server name will be the name that your clients will use to access your server. The email address will be displayed in error messages so that visitors know how to contact you if there is a problem. You will also be offered the choice of running Apache as a service. That option is appropriate if you require Apache to always run when the server boots up, for example. Otherwise, you can always start Apache from the command line.

Can I Install Different Versions of Apache on the Same Machine?

Yes, it is entirely possible, and there are many reasons why you may want to do so. You just need to pick up different installation prefixes. For example, you may want to install an Apache 1.3 server under /usr/local/apache and a 2.0 server under /usr/local/apache2. If you want to run the servers simultaneously, you will need to make sure they use different address and port combinations.

Remember that you don't need to install multiple Apache servers if you just want to run different websites. It is possible to do so with only one Apache server by using the virtual hosts feature, discussed in Chapter 5.

It is also possible to have several servers, each one of them serving a separate part of a website. For example, you can have an Apache 2.0 server providing the main www.example.com website content and delegate the content under www.example.com/signup/ to an Apache 1.3 server running a legacy mod_perl application. You can do so using a reverse proxy, as explained in Chapter 10.